do not go gentle into that good night
by kearlyn
Summary: Cassian needs Jyn to be everything but gentle with him. Jyn needs to know why.


NOTES: In response to this prompt on the kinkmeme: _For some reasons (trauma, etc) gentle sex just doesn't do it for Cassian. He needs to be manhandled and fucked until he cant walk. He likes fighting them off and pretending that he doesnt want it. The other party can be anyone (jyn too) and at some point they worry that cassian is really hurting but he tell them to keep going. Bonus if it mention why cassian likes what he likes_

I can't write the sex scene, but the prompt asks for "why Cassian likes what he likes" so here's the aftermath where they have that conversation. Unbetad and written in a single frenzied sitting, so take it as you will.

It's the fifth time they've done this… whatever this is, and Jyn finds she can't contain her curiosity any longer.

They're collapsed together on Cassian's narrow bunk. (He likes it when Jyn invades _his_ space, he'd told her.) Jyn's head is pillowed on his shoulder and she's idly tracing swirls into his skin. (He'll only tolerate this gentleness _after_ , never during.) One of Cassian's arms is around her shoulders but the other rests on his belly and Jyn can already see the darkening bruises her fingers have left on his wrist.

She swallows and has to look away.

She doesn't _like_ hurting him — for all her fire, she doesn't like hurting _anyone_ — but he'd asked her, begged her, and she couldn't say no. She hadn't been willing to risk breaking apart the fragile thing growing between them before it had ever fully been formed.

(Don't get her wrong, she loves being with him. She loves the spread of his body under hers, the feel of his muscles straining against her strength, the thrill when he submits, finally, to her will. It's a rush, and that it's _Cassian_ just makes it better. But she'd give all of that up if, for a second, she ever thought she was genuinely hurting him. She just doesn't _understand_.)

He'd looked so relieved when she'd agreed and now, like every time after, he looks so content, like something desperate and painful has been soothed inside him.

Jyn likes seeing that look on his face, likes the new spring in his step and the soft smiles he sends her across base.

She just… has to understand.

She tips her head up, taking in the soft smile on his face and the spread of dark lashes across his cheekbones.

"Cassian?" she asks.

He opens his eyes and looks down at her. There's a deep peace in his gaze and for a moment Jyn debates letting it go, but she doesn't. She can't go on forever without knowing and she wants to go on forever with Cassian.

"Why?" she asks, and for a moment he looks confused.

She reaches out and presses the tips of her fingers against the bruises on his wrist.

"Why like this?"

The confusion clears and the joy vanishes from his eyes like shutters have slammed shut behind his gaze. His lips press together and he looks away. Jyn feels abruptly bereft, even as his body goes tense underneath her.

He's preparing to run, she realizes and the thought sends a spike of panic through her.

She's not prepared to lose him.

Control, she tells herself. Calm.

She reaches out to touch the side of his face, turning it back towards her.

"Hey," she says. "Hey. I'm not judging and I'm not running."

She waits until he finally meets her gaze.

"I just want to understand," she says.

Then she waits. He watches her for what feels like eternity, and she finds she can't read what he's thinking.

Finally, when she feels like he might say nothing at all, he lets out a quiet breath and the tension seeps out of his frame.

"On missions," he says haltingly, staring at the ceiling like he can't look at her, "there are times when… to succeed it's necessary to…" He waves a hand, unable to get out the words. "And I can't… I have to be willing. I have to give them what they want. I can't…"

He lets out a frustrated sigh.

"You can't say no," Jyn says quietly, finishing the sentence he doesn't seem able to say.

He meets her gaze, looking startled, and nods.

"And this?" she asks, waving a hand to encompass them, the room put in disarray by their scuffling, Cassian's bruises.

"I can say no," Cassian says after a long silence. "I don't feel like I'm… giving it away. For nothing. This… this is _real_."

Jyn takes this in, turning it over in her mind. It makes a horrible kind of sense and her heart aches for Cassian.

She meets his gaze and in his eyes she sees a desperate, hunted, haunted man, afraid of what this means for the relationship between them.

"Okay," she says.

He blinks, startled, and stares at her, trying to read sincerity in her face. "Yeah?" he asks, uncharacteristically vulnerable.

She stretches up to press a kiss against the side of his mouth, a little hard and with just a hint of teeth.

"Yeah," she says.


End file.
